The present application claims the priority of the Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-103093 filed on Apr. 5, 2000
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to the improvement of the sunglasses, in more details, pertaining to a mechanism for attaching and detaching the lens thereof wherein it enables the variety of sunglasses lens with various optical characteristics such as antiglare and photochromism to be easily exchanged with one another according to the type of activity where the wearers engage such as mountaineering, skiing and fishing.
2. Prior Art
Conventionally, such sunglasses are known as holding its lens into place by thrusting a protrusion disposed on the upper part of the nose pad into an aperture opened in the lens surface and elastically inserting said protrusion into the corresponding aperture opened on the surface of a frontal bar as well as by mounting the lower fringe middle portion of the lens into the groove provided on the circumferential surface of the ridge portion of the nose pad (as referred to the Japanese Utility Model Publication No.7-20654) and further adding to the above holding method a means to mount the respective fringe portions of the lens into the corresponding grooves of the receiving members disposed on the respective ends of the frontal bar (as referred to the Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-open No.6-82624).
However, the more the number of parts for holding the lens into place increases, the more the lens supporting portions becomes bulky. It ruins the visibility and the shapeliness of the sunglasses, thus, inviting a number of complaints from both function-minded and fashion-conscious wearers.
Upon the replacement of the lens with another type of lens having different characteristics such as polarization of light, absorption of ultraviolet rays and attenuation of light or upon the replacement thereof due to damage inflicted thereupon, it takes more time and labor than expected to replace one type or the lens or a broken lens with another because such replacement has been carried out after removing said nose pad, thus, the corrective measures against such inconvenience having been sought after.
Further, the conventionally well-known lens holding mechanism for the sunglasses is intended for stably holding the lens with the restraint of its undesirable vertical, horizontal as well as back and forth movements, which complicates such mechanism and requires high precision upon assemblage. As a result of it, the production cost increases along with the rise of the unit price of the assembling parts, which unavoidably leads to the high price of the sunglasses.
In view of the above inconveniences or issues to be solved with regard to the replacement and exchange of the lens of the sunglasses, the present invention is to provide a pair of sunglasses whose lens is easy and fast to be replaced and exchanged.
Also, it is to provide a pair of shapely sunglasses whose parts for holding the lens into place are simplified while whose lens is stably and securely held into place.
Moreover, it is to provide a replacement mechanism wherein it enables a damaged lens (scratched, split or deformed) to be economically replaced with a new one.
The technical means adopted herein to solve the above issues is as follows. That is to say, the present invention is characterized in realizing a pair of sunglasses comprising a frontal bar molded of a thin rod material such that it aligns the eyebrows of a human face, a longitudinal lens plate supported on said frontal bar and shaped with a size enough to cover both eyes, a temple axially supported on the respective ends of said frontal bar such that it is collapsible and a nose pad suspended from the middle portion of said frontal bar to the ocular side of said bar wherein a hook that retains the frontal upper surface of said lens plate is arranged in front of the middle portion of said bar and the respective upper portions of said lens plate are detachably fastened onto said frontal bar with a locking means. Said locking means may be a pin-shaped structure to interlock said frontal bar with said lens plate by thrusting said structure through the apertures formed on said bar and the corresponding apertures formed on said lens plate or may be a small clip to interlock the upper fringe portions of the said bar with the lens plate. In short, said means can be anything that enables both end portions of the lens plate to be stably supported on the frontal bar in such a point clamping manner as mentioned above.